32 Days of Halloween VI, Movie Night No. 29: The Phantom Planet

There needs to be a technical term for the weird feeling you get when reading a book that was set in the writer’s future but now is in your past. For example, I Am Legend was published in 1954 and set in 1976. I was reading it for the first time in the mid-1990s. That feeling. You can get a version of that feeling–but with hilarious results–when watching tonight’s pick (brought to you despite many attempts by the power grid to stop us) Phantom Planet from 1961. It’s not even the weird and glorious retro costumes and sets–it’s the amazing dialogue. Apart from it being, you know, terrible…I think there should be some sort of drinking game for every time somebody throws out a technical term like “recording reproduction unit.” Enjoy. And try not to get too plastered.